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Improving food preservation technologies is a key aspect in the struggle to reduce global food waste, and natural antimicrobial substances, such as essential oil (EO) components represent very promising food preserving agent. However, their intrinsic chemico‐physical properties, such as the low melting point, low water solubility and high volatility, pose some practical difficulties in exploiting them for practical applications. Cocrystallization is used to stabilize liquid or volatile EO components providing them whit a crystalline environment, thus improving their potential application as antibacterial agents. Five EO active ingredients (THY = thymol, CAR = carvacrol, EUG = eugenol, CAD = trans‐cinnamaldehyde, and VAN = o‐vanillin) and two coformers (INA = Isonicotinamide, and HBA = 4‐hydroxybenzoic acid) have been combined and the corresponding cocrystals have been studied for their potential inhibiting effect against four food spoilage bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis, Enterobacter cloacae, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Serratia marcescens). The structures of the five cocrystals have been used to derive structure‐activity relationships in terms of release energy of the active ingredients form the crystalline environment, and a correlation has been derived with the Intermolecular Interaction Energies of the EO molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-five bacterial strains were selected on the basis of colony morphology from larvae and pupae of Rhynchophorous (Olivier) ferrugineus collected from infested Phoenix canariensis Chabaud trees growing in different Italian locations. 16S rDNA sequencing showed that bacteria isolated from larvae were mostly Gram positive and belonged to Bacillus, Brevibacillus and Paenibacillus genera. Bacteria isolated from pupae were affiliated to Bacillus and five different Gram negative genera (Alcaligenes, Morganella, Myroides, Providencia and Serratia). Some strains produced lytic enzymes like chitinase, lecithinase, lipase and protease in vitro. The enthomopathogenic strains belonging to Bacillus thuringiensis, Providencia rettgeri and Serratia marcescens species may be considered of interest as potential biocontrol agents of R. ferrugineus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volatile constituents of the flowerheads of Centaurea nicaeensis All., C. parlatoris Helder and C. solstitialis L. ssp. schouwii (DC.) Dostal were extracted by hydrodistillation and analysed by GC and GC-MS. Altogether 113 components were identified. Fatty acids and hydrocarbons were the most abundant components in the oils. Caryophyllene and caryophyllene oxide were the main compounds of the sesquiterpene fraction. The study on the biological activity of the oils shows no significant activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]